In a poor community in South Africa, some pregnant women say they binge drink to get their unborn child onto disability welfare - which pays more than an ordinary child grant.

Sky News has reported that some mothers living in an Eastern Cape township have begun intentionally binge drinking while pregnant so that their child is born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), which is irreversible brain and motor function impairment caused by alcohol.

Most of these South African families are unemployed and their children become a source of income. A healthy child receives R250 pm (£18), whereas a disabled child brings in R1,200 (£87) a month — a â€œlucrative” income.

According to Sky News, the most popular drink in the community is an illegal moonshine brew called ‘kah kah’. It’s a milky brown concoction made from yeast, water and battery acid, costing only R2 (14p) per bottled pint. The police often raid illegal drinking dens or shebeens and uncover a new ‘kah kah’ brewery. But with each shebeen they close, another opens.

One mother told Sky News, â€œIf I don’t drink this, I’m like someone who is sick. I can’t sleep and I can’t think straight but when I have this then I am better and I can do anything.”

It has been suggested by The World Health Organisation that the heavy drinking can be partly linked to the legacy of the 400-year-old ‘dop system’ – a practice of compensating farm worker families with alcohol to keep them captive through addiction.

The mother filmed in the Sky News report said she drank no less that five to six bottles a day and would start as early as nine.

According to a study by The World Health Organisation since 2002, there has been a spike in FASD babies in the area. A nearby crÃ¨che has had an influx of disabled babies.